Black Dog Blog

Archive for the ‘animals’ Category

BBC is facing 'moment of realism', warns Mark Thompson

Longest pizza record attempt in Poland

Tiger cub found among stuffed toys in Bangkok luggage

Get out from there, tiger. You are not a cuddly toy, you are a tiger.

Police issue warning after Highland big cat sightings

It's impossible to get enough octopodes. Talented octopus dupes predators by impersonating fish

South Sudan to end use of child soldiers

Scarf of Hope to remember Peru's missing

Mexico's Catholic Church fans flames of gay rights row

The strange virtual world of 4chan

I don't have an actual wooden spoon in my immediate possession, but kindly imagine me slapping one contemplatively against my palm in anticipation of the first person here to go "RULE ONE AND TWO!!2!".

Dude, best. I dreamed about a whole bunch of red pandas.

I appeared to be at a concert that was being held for my brother's birthday. I was sitting some way up the auditorium, a nice stone classical affair, and chumming up with someone I think was my old physics teacher.

Some animals came on, and while they were pygmy dachshund-like pigs at first so of course I didn't recognise them, eventually they became identifiable as red pandas, and climbed onto a few people's laps. Their trainer attending servant put one on my brother's lap. I headed down to the front sharpish and got hold of some of the green gobstopper-like treats people were given to feed to them, but the red pandas were already finishing their act.

Cool or what? My logic, which is correct, is that if the wahs have found a way even into my mental fortress, it won't be long before the entire world falls to their cute. The unutterable teases.

Coalition government – the first 100 days

KENT LANE OLSEN STOP THE PRESSES GET ME MORE North Tyneside lifeguards help ducks across road

Prehistoric 'terror bird' could kill with a single peck

Southern Sudan unveils plans for animal-shaped cities, because just what we need in the middle of downturn and genocide is a Dubai-style construction effort. Obviously.

As existing readers will know, I'm of the staunch opinion that non-human animals are much like human animals, and that includes bullying specimens that differ from the main herd:

Somerset animal sanctuary rescues bullied bald cow

We're all animals, baby, and not only in nice ways.

Catholic charity's appeal over gay adoption fails

I don't think any gay parents wanting to adopt should go to Catholic charities, considering the odious teachings that church espouses and has espoused on the topic of people who fall in love with people the Church doesn't want them to, but for me this is about organisations engaging in special pleading and trying to flout the law.

For a church that's also trying to get the whole "Catholics can't marry into the British monarchy" thing repealed, you'd think they would try to be model, cooperative citizens, not attempt to create mini-Vatican states for themselves.

The charity's toys-ex-perambulata response, preferring not to help any children at all rather than comply with a law that won't affect them much because gays are well aware they're not welcome in Catholic organisations unless they're also lying, predatory paedophiles, just shows the nastiness that lurks under the surface.

Nastiness that they seem determined to prioritise when things like this are going on:

US Catholic church sued by alleged abuse victims

Speaking of schadenfreude, thirty injured as bull jumps into crowd at Spain arena

Australia judge orders witness to remove niqab in court

France will begin expelling Roma in police crackdown

Ultra-orthodox Jews on the rise in UK

Despite bucking the overall trend in the Jewish community and witnessing a rapid growth in birth rates, [Haredi Jews] are experiencing high levels of poverty.

Jonathan Boyd is from the Institute of Jewish Policy Research. He told the conference that the Haredim have been so successful in maintaining their numbers that they could double in size every 18 years.

Sorry, but those two facts together are not "success". Success is children NOT being born into poverty. Children being born into poverty is in fact FAIL. I don't care who you are – don't have more children than you can afford.

Let's say Burma in almost every paragraph, to annoy the junta.

Australia's 'toxic' asylum issue

They gloss over the "queue jumper" aspect quite quickly, but that's the most salient point for me.

In which (three short updates) we see a little glimpse of Young Suitov's values. Wait, he has what now?

Suitov was currently standing at the top of the steps, in the early morning light, raking the gravel of the driveway. This was accomplished without touching it physically. When one is fifteen and a new mage, one tends to do things the flashy, inefficient way for the sake of it.

One Dog Night continues. (I really need to find a better name. They've been together for, what, a couple of days now, and the story's continuing for at least another couple.)

N.B. There is an overlap of a sentence at the end of some posts. That's just to do with where I break off writing. Will be fixed in a final edit.

Military dog recovers from PTSD after Iraq war

PTSD, which the military characterises as a condition that develops after a life-threatening trauma, has not been researched in animals as thoroughly as in humans. But some experts say animals can experience a form of it.

When will we get over the idea that our psychology couldn't possibly be anything like that of another large social mammal? Of course a dog can develop a traumatic disorder! Know something else? They can feel grief, jealousy, loneliness, humour and joy. Of course they bloody can.

All of those have biological uses. They're not just pretty, meaningless trappings we picked up around the same time as Gug and Mog worked out how to bash two flints together. There's a word for people who think they are the special only ones in the universe who can ever truuuly feeeel things so deeeeply. Well, there are several words for it, but I was thinking of "teenager".

I tend to work from a basic assumption that anyone with a nervous system pretty similar to mine is going to have a brain pretty similar to mine. Making allowances for my weirdly overdeveloped abstract thought and language habits, beginning from the standpoint that the other person's point of view is different but possible for me to understand, at least partway, hasn't led me far wrong before.

I think this is an advantage of being one of those strange, shadowy autistic creatures with supposedly no Theory of Mind. What I actually have is a default assumption that other people don't think like me, but that they do think. In my view that's much superior to swooping around empathising at people on the basis of what I personally like and dislike, not even realising how ridiculously I'm projecting.

"Oh you poor dear, how did you get all that red lacquer on your nails? Do you feel very ridiculous? Oh don't worry, I won't think you're necessarily a shallow bitch!" ← Learning not to do this has stood me in good stead.

The Golden Rule is not gospel for aspies. It's dangerous. I treat others, always assuming I care about their happiness, as I think they would like to be treated. Because then it's about them, not about me. Another good thing about that approach? It includes the potential for iterative improvement.

Last night, after going to bed quite upset about the family cat remaining seriously ill, I dreamed about my long-since-ex-dog, Bracken.

I was in some kind of town centre pedestrian shopping street, and she needed to wee, so I found a tree for her and that was all right. (Picture the usual sort of trees that grow in a one-paving-slab-size patch of dirt in town centres, surrounded by grilles on the ground, where idiots tend to drop cigarette butts.) Right near the end of what I remember, I saw my mother also preparing to pee on a tree, which was just odd.

Piper continues alive and alert, although lethargic, complaining of a dry mouth and barely eating (clear signs of kidney trouble, which both his humans suspected before it was diagnosed). On a positive note, we haven't seen any frothy pee after he started antibiotics. He is receiving fluids subcutaneously (in case you didn't know this, cats have a LOT of space under their skin. Loose skin is good protection from other predators who might try to grab them, and helps them squeeze through tiny places. Our neighbour Princess, a huge Maine Coon cross, has been observed forcing herself through a 6cm gap). (Apparently my school teacher genes are activating as some kind of coping mechanism.)

Giving up on our spoiled cat is not an option while he remains bright-eyed and squeaky and wants to live. If there were such a thing as kidney dialysis for cats, his mother would have him on it. We're far from rich, and he's not even a dog, but this is still a family member we're talking about.

Animals are sort of a big deal for me. I'm autistic, so it's a given that I can relate to non-human animals more easily than to humans. Furthermore, and given that it's my understanding that humans are hard-wired to need tactile contact with others, I can't touch other humans without it hurting (the discomfort is psychological but altogether real). If I'm after touch stim, I need – physically need – an animal.

The family pet is the first thing I look for each morning and the first thing I go and find when I get home from work, unless he happens to want something and has consequently come to wait by the door. He's my perpetual fall-back topic of conversation. He never comforts me when I'm sad, but he amuses me whenever he's hungry.

As it happens, I'm wired to live with two dogs, so lodging with a single cat was already less than ideal, but the thought of a house empty of quadrupedal life is… not something I can contemplate with equanimity.

I have a confession. I really dislike the niqab – the full Islamic veil. If I were asked to vote on a ban, I'd really have to grit my teeth in order to vote against it rather than abstain. But I would vote against. My own feelings about the demonisation and control of women are my own business, and I do not accept that they belong in law.

Statistically there's far more risk to the public in this country from cats than from face veils¹, and (albeit, again, on principle only) I'd be against banning cats too.

How will the vote go in France? Will other countries follow suit? The Netherlands perhaps? It's just not going to end well for moderate hippie can't-we-all-get-along bleeding-heart-and-artist scum like me, that's all.

¹ I have not verified this. This is what is known as an unfounded claim. (If you've never seen one of those from me before, you haven't been paying attention.) But you get the point. There's definitely more danger from water than from either of the other things, but stalwart attempts to ban H₂O haven't yet made headway.

Questionable statistics time! By 2051 in the UK, by comparison to the 2001 census, there will still be a comfortable white majority, but other ethnicities will have increased in number by a long way. 79% white d00ds is the prediction, compared to 92% in 2001.

This is from a study published by the University of Leeds (and led by a geographer for some reason) and compiled by a bunch of statisticians, who, though Bau knows I like you all in a generalised benign sort of way, just shouldn't be allowed to predict anything to do with living beings ever.

I shudder to imagine how the red-masthead headlines will summarise this. The BBC's long-form headline is relatively neutral and informative. (update just before posting: oh look, I was right)

Incidentally, we don't have enough ethnic minority spies. I hear there are some Russians currently looking for work…

Businesses 'profit from investing in nature'.

A survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) finds that in some nations, more than half of CEOs see nature loss as a challenge to business growth.

That seems bizarre, and I guess consumer-driven, but possibly a good thing?

US 'disappointed' that Switzerland won't extradite an old man who admitted anally raping a thirteen-year-old girl. Oh, and his house arrest has been lifted too. The Swiss are holding to their position based on some legal technicalities. Fine, but just wait until he sets foot outside the border…

Schools are advised against holding swimming lessons during Ramadan. To prevent children accidentally drinking water.

I don't know if things have changed since I last splashed around in a school swimming pool, but the very last thing I wanted to do was swallow that chlorinated, wee-filled stuff.

It's not only swimming lessons that should be rescheduled, apparently. Exams and sex education should also be postponed because of the disruption to sleep and the requirement to avoid sexual thoughts during the month.

Am I misremembering the principle of the thing, or isn't the point of Ramadan to fast around and in addition to your normal life, in order to feel closer to those without enough food, rather than to change everyone's lifestyle to suit your requirements? I'm sure I remember something about how following your faith ostentatiously is kind of missing the point.

Katherine Jenkins to star in Christmas Doctor Who. Next Easter special: Dizzee Rascal. Next Christmas special: Nick Griffin.

Earth 0.01% younger² than previously thought, say scientists. Young Earth creationists claim victory!

² my maths, so blame me if I forgot the difference between a Brit and a Merkun billion. Can't they publish these figures in sensible powers of ten?

A new 'liquid armour', working on the principle of "what custard does when you whack it", which is more formally known as shear-thickening and is a particular habit of things called non-Newtonian fluids, can STOP BULLETS WITH ITS MIND. And some Kevlar for show, but basically with its mind.

Choir to sing their own DNA. "Somewhat uninspiring lyrics but the music was terribly natural and organic and, um, nucleosidic."

It's a full step in geekiness above the Ayreon song that features vocalists singing in binary…

Pictures time. This tapestry maps the lines of what claims to be the world's biggest diffraction pattern. (Yes, I have heard it publically claim this…)

A rare Brazilian tapir calf at Linton Zoo

A margay (wildcat) making like a parrot…

…and a cyclist in a supremely daft pose, for which we at Black Dog Blog salute him.

The Royal Horse Artillery goes one step further than eating their own dog food, instead cuddling up with their own… well…

And finally, the earliest evidence of a pet tortoise in Britain. Pretty cool to find a pet tortoise alive 130 years ago, wouldn't you say? Well, what if I tell you it was A GUARD TORTOISE IN A FRICKIN' CASTLE and that it had dominion over a PACK OF VICIOUS ATTACK DOGS AND CATS? This was one badass Tetsudo, my friends. It was probably called something like Avenger or Bloodletter³. The fact that it was the only pet tortoise in the vicinity was no stop to its badassery, because its supreme awesomeness permitted it to impregnate other tortoises anywhere within 45° longitude of its location, which, as was previously mentioned but bears repeating, was a FRICKIN' CASTLE.

Tortoises are so cool.

³ or possibly "Lightning", because some senses of humour never change.

I know, a sodding football story, but I love octopuses too much not to give Paul a brief spot here.

DNA repair 'scissors' discovered

Gang 'picks up penguin' from Dublin city zoo

Green woodhoopoes pumping each other up for a big fight. "You're a tiger! You're invincible! Say it; say 'I'm a tiger'! Now get out there and peck 'im!"

Purrvy underwear-stealing cat is reported to the police by his own servants. THE BETRAYAL!

When should GPs refrain from saying "actually, you bloody nutter, I'm calling the police"?

Hyde Park unofficial ceremony remembers 7 July victims. Families complain that the government didn't tell them how to commemorate the anniversary.

Swedish feminists burn cash in wage equality protest. Y'know, if they'd just asked me, I would have happily paid for photocopies of the original £8,500 for them to burn, and then spent it on something awesome.

Two gay asylum seekers win an appeal against a ruling that had told them "go home and try not being gay."

Bee on a poppy

Some meerkat groups choose to get up later, and then mitigate it by skimping on their morning ablutions. Sounds familiar, naming no siblings' names…

Crack found in World Cup!

African-American women struggle to overcome wealth gap

Meanwhile, UN to set up agency promoting women's rights. I hope the 'gender' part of the title doesn't apply only to women. We should always aim for no discrimination based on gender, not 'gender equality' between the two mainstream groups.

Pretty ship at Tower Bridge

'Big budget' porn film shot in London hospital. Yes, apparently the offence is mainly over the fact that the film's budget was higher than the NHS's. Ditto occupational health standards. Zing.

Taiwan chocolate art exhibition. That 'jade' cabbage is beautiful. And the dice and mahjongg pieces, so cute! Exit through the gift shop… NOM.

Fluffy ostrich

Close encounters with giant harpy eagle of Venezuela, who very effectively sorts out a nasty ape that is trying to climb towards her nest. In the second clip, another young man stares out a different filthy ape and takes the mickey out of its walkie-talkie.

Meanwhile, webcam viewers freak out over human hands appearing in their shot of an osprey nest.

Respect is due to this badass lady, who chose to remain conscious during an operation to remove a tumour from her brain.

Dangerous dogs bill 'does not go far enough'. I disagree with the criticisms in the main…

Changes proposed include more emphasis on the owners' responsibility, attacks which take place on private property becoming a criminal offence, and legislation no longer being breed specific.

I don't fully understand the part about attacks occurring on private property (the interview clip seemed to suggest the opposite of what I understood from the article, and I haven't bothered to look up the details yet), but as for the other two changes mentioned, they're completely sensible. A person's race is never an excuse for criminal activity; childhood abuse and upbringing, on the other hand, certainly do shift the blame onto the family. Besides, you can't end up with a situation where you're forced towards genetically testing a litter of crossbreeds, and even ending up with brothers and sisters coming under different laws because of the exact proportion of Staffie in their blood.

The Bahá'ís just can't seem to catch a break. It looks likely that those in Iran (where, I will point out, their religion originated, unlike Islam!) are due further terrorisation and mob violence with the silent collusion of Ahmadinnerjacket's jackboot cronies.

The coalition government is sticking with Labour's Equality Act, apart from the bit about forcing employers to make public how much less they pay their women employees than men.

Inequality just isn't going away. The gap in life expectancy between rich and poor is widening, and somehow I don't quite trust the Tories to close it, even with their collective arm twisted by the yellow contingent.

'Hidden obscenity': Older men grooming teens for sex

Signs of child sexual exploitation 'being missed'

Neil Gaiman (video) on comics and literary success…

"Do you think being a comic writer means you've not been taken seriously?" "I think that coming from a comics background has meant that I have never cared at all about being taken seriously. … I come from comics. That's not even the gutter: that's the drain that the gutter runs into."

Good Omens is still the best thing I've ever read from Gaiman. It was co-written with Terry Pratchett, with the result that both loopy writers bounced off each other magnificently, to glorious results. (The worldbuilding in American Gods and Anansi Boys was enjoyable too, but only because Pratchett's Small Gods – which, unlike Gaiman's books, I can find really scary – had burrowed into my brain during a formative stage.)

I never knew Gaiman's family members were Scientologists. That must help with horror writing.

Speaking of living in a controlled environment, how do you fancy life in a village where children are banned?

Threecows!

30% of children feel scared when they see adults drunk or drinking too much, – which I suppose makes me 30% child, because I know drinkers terrify me. I'm more disturbed by the proportion of children ("nearly half") for whom drinking to excess is a normal, non-frightening sight.

I'll cheerfully admit that I don't know who Justin Bieber is, but 4chan has sent him off to North Korea. Well done, /b/uddies. Can he stay there?

(Presuming, that is, that anyone reads these.)

Red river hog piglets

Pope Benedict XVI UK visit a 'mistake' says Ian Paisley. We are also sad to learn that the Pope will not be speaking on Thought for the Day while he's over here spreading his hateful anti-progressive anti-secular message at our expense, while at the same time being a subject of an ongoing criminal investigation and – well, you get the idea.

Switzerland plans new controls on assisted suicide

British actor Andrew Garfield cast as new Spider-Man. Good, whatever. He can't be worse than Botox Puppy was. All the same, I was under the quaint impression that Spidey was a New Yorker.

Rooster!

Daily view: Prison reform

Australia priest jailed for child sex attacks

In a statement, Denham told the court on Thursday: "All I can say is, I'm so sorry. I see myself as a mere scumbag paedophile who took advantage of a situation and used my power to abuse young people."

Which is a fair summary.

I sent my father some advice on introducing a dog to new cats with no bloodshed. This is actually quite straightforward to accomplish, and you can get the general gist from my abstract:

The cat's unshakeable belief in its own inherent superiority, and ability to convince the dog of the same in the face of overwhelming evidence, is one of the reasons it is such a successful parasitic lifeform. The cat seeks to displace the dog's benign mutualism for its own ends without the host's knowledge.

I recommend Hillaire Belloc's exhaustive treatment, a classic for anyone interested in the subject. Meanwhile, in the realm of speculative fiction, many of the terrifying parasitic alien lifeforms in Neal Asher's novels are rather reminiscent of the cat or its passenger-cum-co-conspirator, Toxoplasma gondii.

Ouch! What's that pain in my horn fingers? Ah, it's my chronic Finnophilia flaring up again.

Finland makes broadband a 'legal right'

(Only 1Mbps, I know – but you should bear in mind, if you live in a fortunate area, that over a quarter of the UK doesn't even have that.)

Three-legged dogs aid robot study

Specialist unit reports more male forced marriages

The Afghan women jailed for 'bad character'

South Korea professor charged over 'holy water' fraud.

Can they prove it was NOT holy water? Because I'm hoping there are no homeopaths walking free in South Korea.

The Child Exploitation Centre is apparently making cautionary cartoons about Paedobear. Er?

I'd like to see that cartoon shown on the page, but can't find it online. I did find this web safety film, which is excellent.

SIEGE POWER! Fifty-one brave souls sabotaged the drawbridge and held Red Castle from invading cherrypickers for three hours. This without any supplies of grapeshot, jelly shots, crossbow bolts or boiling oil. Bold defenders, we salute you!

Dog lifestyle study seeks 20,000 young Labradors

Wonder Woman gets trendy makeover. More from a source that actually understands comics:

DC Comics Has Ruined Wonder Woman!

To add insult to injury for WW fans, from that summary it sounds like a lame House of M style story. Oh well, I bet she gets un-rebooted at the end, making this (no pun intended) a non-issue.

A little Aussie town advises an American town on giving up bottled water.

If Australians can manage without imported purified water, there's hope for us all. It's a horrific product and I wish Concord, Massachusetts the best of luck in vanquishing the unethical companies that peddle it.

In pictures: Heroic dogs. I think I recognise that first dog from the cover of a book I own about dogs in warfare… clearly some much-deserved recognition.

But I don't think Peter really understood "the honour of meeting King George VI and a young Queen Elizabeth", do you?

A white councillor has been found guilty of racial harassment after, in a debate about ring-fencing funds for white communities only, she called another white councillor a traitor to her race.

Israeli pig-farming kibbutz draws religious ire – not because they're eating the meat left over after they're used for organ experiments (although some members of the kibbutz do indeed chow down on pork chops), but for the fact that they are keeping pigs on Ye Holy Lande at all.

I'm all for people not eating pork—along with shellfish, beef, sheep, tuna and anything else sentient that you care to omit from your diet—but if you claim that pigs are disgusting and dirty, rather than the adorable, sensitive, cuddly, ear-scritchy, bone-splintering fun they obviously are, there's just something wrong with you. These baby Sus scrofa are hereby holier than you until further notice.

China's latest walking fashion accessory: ZEBRA DOG!

Playthings. Perambulator.

OH HAI U GUIZE LETS HAEV MOAR FIREARMZ KK?

Now, baby red pandas. Two sets, actually. Baby Red Panda Born at National Zoo and Calgary Zoo keeps hands off infant pandas (mentions but doesn't specify the subspecies, but I guess at A. f. fulgens from this picture and this. A. f. styani tend to be darker, but obviously everyone varies and I'm not an expert. Styani are also bigger and live in the northeastern part of their wild range. I've been known to claim that my authorial totem is a big, dark styani. If you want to know why red pandas are brilliant, apart from the obvious, check their funky moves. ILLUSTRATED PARENTHETICAL DIGRESSION FUR THE WIN. Cough. redpandasrule)

Why kangaroos evolved small arms and long legs

As usual, the abstract of the paper is a bit more clear than this reporting.

Pakistan to monitor Google and Yahoo for 'blasphemy'

What's that old saw? Those who eavesdrop never hear anything good about themselves…

[Special message for the Pakistani government only: God has a partner God has a partner God has a partner God has a partner God has a partner God has a partner God has a partner God has a partner][shirk'd!]

And now it's time for your irregular Two Minutes' Schadenfreude. Watch them squirm, splutter and exaggerate their hardships:

Pope deplores 'sex abuse' raids by Belgian police

Vatican anger over child sex abuse raids in Belgium

Go Belgium, I hope the rest of the world follows suit, and let's let Tim Minchin have the last word, because he does it so nicely.
(lower-res version with subtitles)

Cyborg Cat: minutes after the anaesthetic wears off, he is already turning on his masters and infiltrating their restricted areas.

Belgian Catholic offices raided in sex abuse probe

Australia ready for first female leader, while Trinidad's PM breaks the cultural mould

Early book satchels used by monks go on display

Ancient baby deaths linked to Roman 'brothel' in Buckinghamshire

See all the trouble caused by silphium going extinct? Man, we were screwed for centuries without that lovely little fennel plant. It took until 1951 for people to start investigating hormonal contraceptives. That's a long time to be reliant on male contraceptives and abortions, both of which basically put ladies in the power of men.

(Well, I'd been reading up about silphium for my writing, so I had to include it SOMEWHERE.)

This thing is called a Crom-eyed Tosspot, or rather it is now. Edit: It does not after all look like Charlycrash, but I still think it's pretty. :P

Tiger and two camels kidnapped in Canada are found

Slow worms colonise landfill site in Cardiff Bay, where they have been moved with great expense and care.

Good otter. Very good otter. Very good and very newsworthy five seconds of silent, black-and-white footage of otter. If more news stories consisted of otters having fun, being otters and generally taking the mickey out of people with cameras, the world would be happier and also more whiskery.

How fruit trees in Indian village save girls' lives

Sentences overturned on the racist haredim court case in Israel

The mainstream news has been really rubbish with regard to red panda stories. Allow me to red-ress that a little. Here an El Paso zoo director has gone to China to see about fresh paramours for his red panda roomies, while some Croatian red pandas are moving from Zagreb to Zurich, a trip for which they won't need the first 25 chapters of the A-Z. (note, incidentally, the well-researched photo accompanying the article. Here is a Zagreb red panda and further proof that the pandas are in fact red. I found these in a matter of seconds. The Croatian Times fails at wildlife).

There is still no pangolin news that doesn't involve bushmeat, and I really don't want to cover THAT.

In other red panda news nightmares, scream for me.